


GWW Collection

by AbbyDebeaupre



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drums, F/M, MOBY, Missing Moments, TFC, The Space Between
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 08:24:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14040162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbbyDebeaupre/pseuds/AbbyDebeaupre
Summary: Series of canon compliant one shots and missing moments set throughout the Outlander series and companion books





	1. Please Just Stop Talking

 

 

He’d been hearing about Bear-Killer for three moons at least. Up and down the ancient network of trails that marked the area in which he trapped he’d heard little else. A gigantic redheaded foreigner who managed to take down a 500 pound black bear with his bare hands. That bit of obvious hyperbole made him smile. But he was curious, how could he not be? Stumbling into Anna Ooka tonight seemed fortunate indeed, for he found himself eager to meet this paragon of masculine virtue for himself. But business first, he had furs to trade.

Murtagh was one of a handful of white men who moved with ease between the Europeans and the Native Americans and his dealings with the various tribes frequent enough that his presence was–if not welcomed precisely– then no longer a surprise. His ear was still facile enough that he had little trouble making himself understood and having grown to manhood in Scotland, he kent fine how to co-exist among clans.

Murtagh had served his seven years of indenture in the colony of Virginia and then travelled inland for hundreds of miles until he found contentment. Such a simple thing and he cherished these last three years having not known a single peaceful year in the twenty that had come before. His was a fine, quiet life. Far different from what he’d imagined as a young boy and completely alien to any life he’d known as a man but he was at home in this wilderness.

He could go weeks not speaking at all. Months without speaking French - which was often a common language when white folk and Indian had no other words. He might, in fact, go half a year or more without English as there were so very few British in these backwoods. Germans, French, even the odd Dutchman had popped up now and then but for the English, Murtagh needed to be closer to the coastal cities and outposts such as Cross Creek, a rare occurrence. He preferred wide open, sparely inhabited places. 

The scrawny kid standing before him speaking very bad French wouldn’t have been capable of subduing a wild rabbit, let alone a black bear. Murtagh found himself glancing at Nacognaweto across the dim light of the long house hearth trying to decipher what the lad was saying. He shrugged his shoulders in response to a question he hadn’t understood. Something about an elder of his waiting at a camp just outside the village lines. The hunter made a gesture behind Murtagh and out of the darkness came an older man with a sparse, thin frame.

The man took up the conversation and to Murtagh’s infinite relief spoke flawless French. The two of them relaxed into a lightning fast exchange. The man was thoroughly Parisian in accent and gestures. It was then that Murtagh noticed the missing hand. He couldn’t possibly have wrestled the bear, either.  

“Which of you is Bear-Killer?” he asked just to be sure. The boy’s French was good enough to understand Murtagh’s question and he saw the two companions grin at one another.

“That would be my father.” The Frenchman said. “Would you care to meet him?” Murtagh followed behind the men, trying to ignore the wolf pup stalking in the boy’s wake. On the breeze he picked up the strands of the conversation between them spoken in soft undertones. 

It had been over three years since he’d heard the language of his homeland and improbably in this distant, remote outpost his brain slipped easily back into its rhythm. Gaelic. Murtagh felt the sting of unexpected tears and a longing so deep within his bones, he almost joined in. Yet caution kept him silent. They were almost at their destination. Murtagh saw the shadows playing on the trees less than twenty yards in the distance.

As they came into the clearing he could see the outlines of two more people seated around the flames, obviously one of the pair was a woman and their heads were bent close together. When his companions reached the clearing, the man rose and Murtagh took in the shape of him. A highlander. He was absolutely sure of it from his size and the way he moved. In the stillness, he heard the laughter.

“Aye, I’ll admit it, Uncle Jamie,” the lad was saying, still in Gaelic, “ye were right. I shoulda paid more attention when Fergus was trying to teach me French. We met a trapper at the village, said he’d heard many tales of the famous bear killer and wanted to meet ye.”

Disbelief numbed his lips. Almost before the boy’s words confirmed what his subconscious had been trying to tell him, he realized it. Deo gratias. God had kept his godson safe, all this time. And Fergus, Jesus the wee gomeral had grown into a handsome man. Murtagh was deeply mournful for the loss of the hand but found he wasn’t terribly surprised. Well, mayhap he was simply incapable of being shocked at the moment- Jamie Fraser and Fergus! God in heaven!

The woman sitting by the fire caught sight of him and shifted a bit, as her head came up and she offered him a shy, welcoming smile. The movement brought her face into the warm light and Murtagh’s knees went out from under him. It turned out he was still capable of being shocked, after all.

Jamie was just getting his arms underneath the trapper as Claire began to undo his stock. Fergus, alarmed and slightly worse for the sampling of Jamie’s whisky in the long house earlier in the evening, was raising his voice quite a bit more than necessary.

“Is he alive, Milady? Where shall we put him, Milord? Perhaps ‘twould be best if if we—-”

“Haud yer wheesht, Fergus, I may have changed a lot in twenty odd years but my hearing is still the same as it was.”

Startled, Jamie tripped with Murtagh in his arms and down they both went.

“I ken I told ye it doesna hurt a bit to die,  _a bhalaich_ , but it still hurts to be dropped.”

Jamie’s eyes brimmed over and Murtagh was pulled in an embrace that knocked the breath out of him. He’d never felt better in his life.

 


	2. A Good Neighborhood for Bad Habits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One-shot, Set a year after The Space Between, involving Jamie’s daughter, Joan MacKimmie, who has moved to Paris to become a nun. One year ago, Jamie’s nephew, Michael Murray, escorted her from Scotland to France. It has been a year of mourning for Michael and a year of change for Joan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marsali gets a letter from her sister.

My Beloved Sister:

I have thought of you often these many months. I hope your heart is finding some comfort in your family’s new surroundings and that Fergus’s business continues to thrive in your new city. It sounds charming.  I pray for Henri-Christian’s soul each night. You have known and kept my secrets, sister dear, and so you will believe me when I tell you your son is at peace and is home with the angels. I wish I had met him in the flesh given how vibrant his spirit is when it comes to me. 

Claire’s letter of introduction could not have been better met by Mother Hildegard. Please tell her that Mother sends her highest regards.

Now to my own personal news.

You know I fled Scotland with all the haste of a wanted fugitive, hoping to ease the torment of my soul and the visions that came so unexpectedly to me.  I arrived in Paris a gauche girl, untrained in my gifts and fearing for my immortal soul. Perhaps it was naive of me to imagine that I would find peace with holy sisters, that becoming a nun would convince God to free me of the burdens He’d asked me to carry in this life.

I have learned so much, though I likely will never understand why He graced me with these extra perceptions but I am able at last to accept my unusual situation. I have become a healer, too, which is a far more useful occupation. 

Finally, Marsali, I can tell you for certain my life will be far more adventurous than I ever realized, 

Do you recall Daddy’s nephew Michael? The one who is the twin of Janet, with Da’s red red hair. Following in Fraser footsteps as assistant to cousin Jared Fraser in his Parisian wine business. His year of mourning for his wife has passed. The arrondissement where the convent is housed is home to no less than five additional holy orders. Michael sells wine at each abbey and monastery in these environs. He has been instrumental in helping me understand and accept what it is I am and what it is I shall become….. and Marsali— last night…oh last night!

We were walking in the walled gardens behind the Le Hopital and he said he didna wish me to cut my hair, the final step to becoming a novice. When I asked him what else I could possibly do, enshrouded as I am in this district surrounded by all these nuns, everyone in their monochromatic frocks, lives ruled by calls to duty sounded out by the chiming of bells and he laughed. 

Oh, I finally understand what ye meant when ye told me the way Fergus looked at ye made ye forget yer own name, for his eyes were full of such longing when he turned to me, I had butterflies in my wame.

Then he took my hand, pressed me up against the stone enclosure in the back tempting me wickedly wi’ his long, strong fingers and soft, red lips. 

“Ye are a good woman, Joan MacKimmie, but ye were never meant to be a nun. Dinna fash, I’m sure we’ll think of something to keep ourselves occupied. This seems like a good neighborhood for bad habits.”


	3. Suffocated: It Was There in Every Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bree is an artist– I wonder if she ever drew pictures of her life before and what might have happened if Jamie ever found them. Set at Fraser’s Ridge.

“Claire!” 

She’d been puttering in her garden, knees covered in damp soil, hands busily transplanting, green spilling from fingertips as she jumped to her feet.

“What’s happened?” The urgent tone of Roger’s voice causing an instinctual reaction.

“It’s not an injury, but ye must come —Jamie!” Roger turned at once, running with her on his heels.

She found him in the study, he was curled on his side on the floor in front of the bookshelves. Brianna kneeling behind him, clutching one of her sketchbooks to her chest.

She could see at once that he was breathing, but shaking as if in a fever, a low whimpering sound coming from the middle of his chest. Claire dropped down beside Bree and gently touched Jamie’s arm but he shrugged her away. The movement reminiscent of what he did when awakened by nightmares and didn’t want her touch, either. 

Claire leaned forward into the hair curling at the back of his ear. “I’m here, love.” She whispered softly and rose, beckoning Bree to follow her into the kitchen.

Once she was sitting down at the table, Claire poured her a finger of whisky. Bree made a moue of distaste but grabbed the glass and, doing so, slid the book that was still in her hands across the table.

Claire started thumbing through its pages. Bree was a wonderful artist, capturing nature’s abundance with confident, sure strokes. Several portraits of the inhabitants of Fraser’s Ridge appeared in quick succession: Fergus laughing with Germain down by the swimming hole, Roger rocking wee Jem, Lizzy and her father, Jamie and Mrs. Bug by the hearth. 

Their house in Boston brought her up short. Such an incongruous sight. A rough sketch of a train, a skyscraper, a modern kitchen complete with fridge and stove, Smokey their enormous Newfoundland and then she saw it.

Frank, the crows feet at his eyes, his hair just going silver, that warm-hearted smile. Another one of her and Frank, hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree. Both in profile, hands stretched toward its branches, preoccupied in their separate tasks.

“I didn’t know.” Bree whispered, looking miserable. “Da wanted my help on the foundation for the big house. I asked him to grab my book and then Jemmy came in. My hands were full so I asked him to just find me a blank page. One minute he was laughing at the picture of Mrs. Bug and asking me all kinds of questions about the stove and how it worked and the next he made a… sound like I’d never heard before. He just crumpled and started to shake and I – Mama why didn’t you tell me Daddy and Jonathan Randall looked so alike?”

Claire’s fingers were tracing the lines of Frank’s face. Bree watched as her thumb absently worried the gold wedding band she wore on her left ring finger. Claire kept her eyes downcast as she answered.

“Back in Boston it didn’t seem important. I never expected you would be here, or meet Jamie. I tried to tell you more about the things your Da would have wanted you to know about him and our life back then. Never about that…about Jack. I told you he’d been flogged and a little about the rest of what….but I didn’t see the point in giving you the graphic details. You’ve seen the scars, and know yourself how–I was worried it might taint your memories of your father. Frank was nothing like Black Jack except in looks.”

“I feel awful. Tear them up, Mama. Please.”

“No, love. That’s not the answer, he’s seen it and won’t soon forget it. This is why I never told you. It’s not fair to Frank for you to feel any shame about honoring him, however you want. You miss him, I know why you felt the need to see him again. Though, if you would, please take the book back to your cabin?” Claire cast a longing look back toward the study.

Bree gently took the book back and gave Claire a hug. “Tell him how sorry I am, please, Mama. I never meant to hurt him.”

“Of course you didn’t, Jamie knows that.”

He’d managed to get himself into a chair by the time Claire made it back to him. She saw the bottle of whisky on the table nearby. He held the glass out to her as she crossed the room to him. She took it, but kept her hand in his as she sat, watching him, waiting.

“Bree?”

“She’s fine!” Not a bit surprised that his first thought would be of their daughter.

“It was unexpected, aye?” The tremble in his voice belied his attempt at an appearance of calm.

“I know.” Claire’s eyes filled with unexpected tears. Seeing Frank’s face, that smile, the ache of regret. The guilt for never being able to love him as she had before.

“I kent you told me Randall's image was the twin of Frank's but my God Claire, the same, almost exactly the same! How could ye…how did ye—” Jamie wasn’t sure how to say it.

“The first time I saw him again…after, I was in a hospital bed in Inverness. The medical staff thought I had come undone. In my homespun dress, screaming about Culloden, malnourished and filthy. I wouldn’t let them take my clothes off at first. They smelled of peat fire and mud and most of all…you.” Claire gave him a look. She took comfort in the fact that his gaze was as steady as a rock, willing her to continue. “They wanted to bathe me and wash my hair and examine me. After a few hours I realized that my resistance was only confirming their belief that I was insane. By the time Frank arrived I had begun to resemble, at least a little, the woman I had been in the 20th century. He hadn’t forgotten me.”

At this Jamie gave a snort that let her know in Frank’s shoes he wouldn’t have been able to forget her– well he hadn’t actually, either.

“It was a shock, to have him just –there.When he tried to touch me the memories..everything got all mixed up and I reacted poorly.” To say the least. Claire had recoiled and screamed for him not to touch her. She’d never been able to forget his dumbfounded expression at her fear of his touch. “We spent the next several days in Inverness with friends— Roger’s adoptive father actually. He was maybe four or five at the time.” Jamie nodded knowing this coincidental fact already. “I tried to tell him, just as I tried to tell you–” Claire made a helpless gesture encompassing the futility of trying to explain well enough for there to be true understanding.

“He loved Brianna deeply. He truly was a great father. We never spoke of my life here again. But —.” Claire’s voice grew very soft, confessional in tone and a deep sadness stole over her.

“Every time I looked at her, Frank could see it in my face, Jamie. You were there in every breath I took. What I could never tell him, what he never could understand was that every time he looked at Bree, I saw Faith in his face. She was there, too, in every breath Frank took.”

Jamie inhaled sharply and a soft grunt of pain escaped from him. Claire hadn’t told him what it had been like—truly like for her. Now, she gave him a wry look.

“Rather hard to get any fresh air, under those circumstances; it smothered our marriage. He and I were alive but our marriage had died, suffocated due to the lack of oxygen.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr for Gotham-Ruaidh's Writing Workshop


End file.
